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Friday, April 3, 2009

Votes over Values, Power over Principles!!

Everything is not black and white in life, and when it comes to politics the hues of grey are ever so many more. Everyone to his own and his will seems to have been the mantra of Indian polity forever now. So much so that its now commanplace when a politician or a political party choose to blantantly interpret a clear cut ‘black’ with its own version of ‘grey’, while everyone even a blind guy can call it ‘black’.

Take for instance the latest drama in the Samajwadi Party over their now-appointed-general-secretary – Sanjay Dutt, I mean what good on earth is he worth a place like that. The Luckhnow constituency has been represented by great statesman like – AB Vajpayee ; we have seen it contested by the likes of Karan Singh and Ram Jethmalani – both men light years ahead of the Dutt scion in political acumen and achievements in their respective fields.

Its political obsenity of the worst kind to have someone who has been convicted of grevious crimes like Sanjay Dutt to even contemplate a public office. He has not been convicted in a crime that was against his personal enemy/grudge/accident; the indictment from the Supreme Court in the 1992 Mumbai Blast case was a crime that was against a particular community – not just the Isamic one but every one in Mumbai specifically and Indians across the country generally. It was a crime against the nation and humanity, by involving himself in a crime of supplying the weapons which killed the citizens of this land, Sanjay Dutt had long debarred himself from any public office.

Just by acting in movies Dutt never transformed himself into a Mahatma nor did he ever fully cleanse himself of the sins of the Mumbai Blast. He might have changed himself but that alone doesn’t atone for what he did nor does he entitile him to a place in the temple of our democracy.

Saying this all, I am not just representing a anti-Sanjay Dutt group, if anything I am asking for more political prudence and restraint from our polity. Men who write the laws of the land must be chosen from those that follow the laws of the land in the first place. You can be breaking and making laws all the same.

If there must be an indictment of Sanjay Dutt for aspiring for a public office, there must be a greater indictment of the Samajwadi Party and its head honchos who seem to be running this circus. Its shameful to say the least, sure they are no saints in Indian politics but then there are no (sadly) bigger stars on the Indian movie scene than Sanjay Dutt, by taking up his cause to fight for public office, then are inadvertantly taking up the cause of every bloody rogue with a criminal past who wants to occupy the scared place in our democratic polity.

By glorifying the plight of a man who was caught for colliding with the enemies of this land the party has decided to call slip in a blatant white lie, when every one knows what that it is a dirty dark truth. Sure, there are dozens of Pappu Yadav’s and Md. Shahabuddins in our parliament, but none were was glorified and upholded like Munnabhai; if until today the Shabuddins and Pappu Yadav’s were the inevitable villans of the political theatre, but the Sanjay Dutt crusade has sure brought them into the big star cast.